Straight Line
Role model in politics and disconcerting reality
FORMER Chief Adviser and Chief Justice Muhammad Habibur Rahman while speaking as chief guest at the National Citizen's Dialogue titled "National unity to face major challenges 2008" has implored the nation to "elect such parliament members who will be role models not only in politics but also on our way forward". He has reportedly urged not to waste our votes on incompetent persons. Justice Habibur Rahman could not be more candid. How one wishes his entreaties make an appropriate impact on the relevant quarters?
However, on ground do we find politicians whose activities bear testimony to their passionate commitment to public causes for the defence of the rights and liberties of common man? Is there credible evidence of painstaking efforts to ensure that the well-springs of democracy remain undefiled? Do we see the few who would make things happen for the overwhelming majority who have no idea of what happens?
If we look at the history of the sub-continent we find that the people have risen to great heights when they have basked in the glow of noble kings or leaders. We also see that many regimes have been destroyed not by adversity but by abasement. Corruption has been the greatest solvent of public institutions; poverty poses a far smaller threat.
Incidentally, in the democratic experience of Bangladesh since at least 1991, we find that our politicians have remained occupied in maintaining a system which is poisoned by collective bad faith and polluted by individual avarice. Instead of vision and imagination our leaders have been served by deception and craftiness. Their eloquence flourished most when public affairs were in the worst condition.
The question that should bother a discerning mind is whether with our fragile institutions and economic under-performance we can have a truly representational democracy. There is no denying that the whim and caprice of our ruling clan of the immediate past have transformed our democracy into a confrontational and near dysfunctional entity. The burly sinners of our political world have consistently corrupted goodness.
Without doubt our polity will need time for our democracy to have an aristocracy of talents, knowledge and character. While waiting for that, good number of criminals and plunderers must be permanently debarred from politics and public life.
The process of replacing the mercenaries of our political arena by men of honour and knowledge will prove lengthy and the delivery promises will be difficult to fulfil but the filth and stench of public life have to be cleansed. Politics have to be salvaged from the dangerous blend of incompetence, unscrupulousness and plain wickedness.
The question is, must the reins of power be handed back to those who appear promise-bound never to become wiser? Also whether we should revert back exclusively to that party system which takes grievous toll of an individual's independence, judgment and freedom of action?
The disenchantment of our people with the state of politics and our politicians has to be appreciated. The premonition that elections and their corruptions, injustice and the power and tyranny of wealth, and inefficiency of administration, will make a hell of life as soon as freedom is given cannot be summarily dismissed. It is perhaps time to take freedom in moderation. It is also time to see if our legal system has made life too easy for criminals and too difficult for law-abiding citizens.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that at present our people are in a mood which comes rarely in the life of a country. They are looking forward to new direction, a new era; a new life. It is time not merely for a new budget or a new licencing policy or new price structure. It is perhaps the moment for shaping and moulding a new society, for giving a new and clear orientation to the nation.
We have to remember that our society has to not only fight against the big time criminals masquerading as politicians, it has also to do away with the few hundred petty tyrants that mushroomed all over the country during the last couple of years.
In our politics one can see a patron-client relationship, otherwise described as strong band of paternalism. The adversarial relationship between people and authority has been promoted by our politicians and as a result, our people have become beseeching supplicants and not demanders. We do not ask for amenities as a matter of right, services in return for payment of taxes, respect and dignity as a citizen but everything as a gesture of goodwill from our 'benign' rulers.
It is largely true that most of our politicians seek special favours and feel gratified if corrupt and inept supreme authority bestows these upon them. Instead of collective gains they have preferred individual profits. Most people are beguiled by the feigned humility and politeness of corrupt leaders, ignoring the disastrous effects of the visionless and directionless policies.
It is not unusual to see many of our otherwise upright and honourable politicians praising dishonest and callous leaders because those leaders were good to them at a personal level. It would not be wrong to assume that even educated Bangladeshis look to their leaders for favours rather than ideas, meaningless rhetoric rather than concrete action.
While deliberating on democratic reforms or political party reforms, we should not be oblivious of the reality that instead of long-term institutional reforms everyone wants short-term gains. In our situation the best politician is one who never says 'no' to his voters or friends.
Democratic and the political party reforms have not received the due attention because our political elite have not believed in the concepts of modern governance. They did not think that a neutral civil service selected on the basis of a competitive examination, codification of laws, delegation of powers, local self-government and an independent judiciary and more modern universities and colleges for social sciences, medicine and engineering were essential for building a democratic and progressive polity.
The striking irony of recent times is that the suspension of democratic activities following the change of 11th January 2007 has actually resulted in the sharp awakening of the political conscience of the nation. A realization has perhaps dawned that the people are the only keepers of the constitution and that at poll time they need to exact a heavy price from those who have been manifestly notorious by indulging in the worst of corrupt and undemocratic activities.
Many politicians including the party heads did not sound credible when they pointed to the paramount necessity of the holding of party council session for carrying out the proposed reforms. This is so because at least one major political party did not hold any council session for the last 12 to 14 years. In fact, major party decisions have been mostly influenced by the sycophants and the time-servers, the cringing and the craven.
It is to be hoped that the present government will enact such laws and take such executive action as are not meant merely to deal with the difficulties of the moment but calculated to ensure the good of the country in the long years ahead. Though political party reforms are no less important, the caretaker government would be rendering a lasting national service by effecting badly needed electoral reform.
The nation needs to be salvaged from the cesspool of degradation to which professional politicians have reduced our country. By voting such politicians to power we have kept a gifted and enterprising nation in the ranks of the poorest on earth. The survival of such politicians as public figures depends upon the continuation of the forces of ignorance. For many of our portly politicians, goodly in girth, public deprivation is good business: they talk continually about poverty without having the will, the expertise or the imagination to eradicate it.
It is only in the very recent past that some of our prominent politicians were contemplating to retire because perhaps politics had been a very satisfying means of personal enrichment for them and that too within a short period. Such an apprehension is suspected to be true for at least some young politicos who in the last couple of years have risen from rags to riches. One such figure who worked in a sensitive post in the chief executive's office during the last political government is now a fugitive from the law. Some glimpses of his illegal acquisitions, as reported in the media, are credible evidence of the abominable low to which politics has descended in Bangladesh.
It may be the time to strengthen the local government, now that we have an extended caretaker government that has supposedly no narrow and partisan interests. This is urgently necessary to control the ever-increasing greed and lust of less than conscientious politicians. Greater concentration of power at one point is undoubtedly bad for the political health.
It is time to think if by means of legal and institutional measures we can make life difficult for the corrupt elements. We have to ensure that such elements do not get time to relax and are subjected to real inconveniences in displaying their ill-gotten worldly possessions. The politicians can be kept on track if statutory measures are taken to guard against their becoming unbridled promoters-distributors of favours. This is crucial to stop favour-seeking satellites from hovering around the so-called power points. The opportunity cost of being corrupt in politics has to be very high.
It is time for our society to ensure that the political scene is not dominated by people whose real sources of income cannot be ascertained. For most people politics must not turn into a fulltime occupation, and prominence in public life should be accorded only after some positive record of public service. The villains cannot be upstaged in our political history. Sense of propriety in public life has to be retained. Administrative and financial accountability should be considered as solemn, serious and sacred in affairs of the State.
Running the affairs of State is a solemn and grim business where we need individuals of true grit. It was indeed pathetic to see occupiers of very high political office enjoying largely the perks and privileges of power without feeling the burden of responsibilities. Their conspicuous consumption was a rude shock for many. The single minded pursuit of money by the ruling elite have impoverished the mind of the nation and has also desiccated its heart. Wiping the dirt from the art of politics brooks no further delay.
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